Discourse representation theory
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Discourse representation theory (DRT) is a framework offering a representation language for the examination of contextually dependent meaning in discourse. DRT was created by Hans Kamp in 1981. In one sense DRT offers a variation of first-order predicate calculus -- it's forms are pairs of first-order formulae and the free variables that occur in them. In traditional natural language semantics, only individual sentences are examined, but the context of a dialogue plays a role in meaning as well. For example, pronouns such as he and she rely upon previously introduced individual constants in order to have meaning. DRT uses variables for every individual constant in order to account for this problem. A discourse is represented in a discourse representation structure (DRS), a box with variables at the top and the sentences in the formal language below in the order of the original discourse. Sub-DRS can be used for different types of sentences.
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